Editor’s note: Incumbent Felicia Moore, Ricardo Mosby and Duwon “Mooley” Robinson will face off for the District 9 Atlanta City Council seat in the Nov. 5 nonpartisan election. The district includes part of Buckhead. Below are profile articles on each candidate, listed alphabetically.

FELICIA MOORE PROFILE:

In seeking her fifth term, Felicia Moore is hoping to see through several major efforts to ensure the community is attractive, safe and a good place to do business.

Moore, a 52-year-old real estate broker, has been the District 9 Atlanta City Council representative since 1997. If re-elected, she said she already has a roadmap of projects she would like to undertake.

“I’m looking forward to seeing some of the good things [I’ve been working on] come to fruition and working on some longstanding things I haven’t been able to tackle,” she said.

One of the major hurdles Moore hopes to overcome is to help revamp the city’s code enforcement policies to either clean up or demolish vacant and dilapidated properties, which she said have become a mounting problem in her district.

“I receive complaints from citizens and I have to throw up my hands and say to them, ‘Here’s the number. You can call but you probably are not going to see a lot of progress,” she said of Atlanta’s Office of Code Compliance.

Neighborhoods with a large number of blighted properties tend to draw criminal activity, Moore said, and aside from code enforcement, she would also like to continue to work with communities in her district to establish more “sustainable and effective” neighborhood watch programs.

“What I want to be able to do is to get more neighborhoods connected and not wait until they get a big spike of criminal activity happening before they come together,” she said. “I want to really activate the citizenry around public safety.”

For the last decade, the Perry-Bolton Tax Allocation District, aimed at redeveloping more than 500 acres in northwest Atlanta, has been held up in litigation. With all of those legal issues now squared away, Moore said she wants to focus the TAD funds on demolishing the Moores Mill shopping center to make way for a Publix and other retail space.

She said she expects bonds to be issued by the end of this year, to begin demolition in 2014 and complete the project by 2015.

“I want to be on the first bulldozer,” Moore said. “I’m really excited.”

According to Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission’s website, Moore had $23,729.88 through the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30.

With other formerly blighted neighborhoods throughout Atlanta seeing a renaissance in revitalization, civil litigation attorney Ricardo Mosby is running to see a similar change in District 9.

Mosby, a former legislative assistant to city council, said he’s seen a number of improvements in other districts but a steady decline in his neighborhood.

“There are no banks, no grocery stores, no major developments,” Mosby said. “We are a major corridor for people coming from Cobb and Douglas counties through Atlanta into downtown.”

While parts of southwest and east Atlanta have grown, Mosby, 46, said he continues to see vacant houses, overgrown lots and littered streets that create hotspots for criminal activity throughout the district.

Mosby, who is engaged and is the father of three, would not disclose his fiancé’s and children’s names. He said he feels he is the best choice in the race because of his negotiating skills gained through his years of practicing law.

“I’ve negotiated major contracts for the city of Atlanta and other major entities,” he said. “I have the ability to get things done. As opposed to just being a gadfly or a political stalwart, I would be a person who would be a catalyst for progress.”

If elected, Mosby said his primary goal would be addressing public safety issues, while also maintaining a focus on community and economic development.

Though he said he did not want to make any personal attacks against incumbent Felicia Moore, he believes now is the time for change.

“I think once you’ve been a position so long, you’re not really a catalyst for change,” Mosby said. “You really become part of the machine. [Moore has been in office] 16 years — that’s a long time. After 16 years, I’ve seen no real progress. … There are pockets of progress, but I believe I can do better.”

Mosby said if elected, he promises to only serve two terms.

“If I’ve been there eight years and I can’t do it, I think I should give someone else the opportunity,” he said.

According to Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission’s website, Mosby had $5,375.00 net cash on hand through the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30. He has been fined $125 filing his report late.

Born and raised in Atlanta’s Westside, Duwon “Mooley” Robinson is hoping to be the voice of District 9, which he said has not had adequate representation on the city council in his lifetime.

The 36-year-old sports agent said he is concerned for the health of his neighbors, pointing to an abundance of fast food chains and small mom-and-pop stores scattered throughout the district and a lack of nutritious options.

“I have never seen a quality grocery store,” he said. “We never had the opportunity to get fresh fruit or vegetables, never had a quality doctor. The time is now for that.”

Robinson spent his youth working for Atlanta political and civil rights campaigns, working closely with civil rights leader Hosea Williams and on the campaign trail for former Atlanta Mayors Andrew Young and Bill Campbell.

He said he hopes to leverage his political background to add more business to the area, create more recreational areas for at-risk teenagers and reduce crime. Robinson has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Morgan State University in Baltimore. As part of his efforts to steer youth away from crime, he mentors and tutors Atlanta Public School students.

“I figure I’m the best person who can help solve crime, help keep the crime reduced and help keep the children in school,” he said. “The real hope for these kids is to have someone you know, someone who came up in the projects [just like] you and made a better choice. I graduated [from college.] I’m doing something positive and made a better choice. They know that I understand what they go through. They too can make those same positive choices.”

Robinson said he hopes the District 9 representative is a leader who performs duties that may not fall under his job description, including forging relationships with the Atlanta Board of Education to ensure more resources are distributed to schools in the district.

“If you don’t have education, you are doomed for a poor paying job and live in fixed-income housing for the rest of your life,” he said. “Education has to start first because that is the root.”

According to his campaign report on the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission’s website, Robinson has not raised or spent any money during the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30. He not disclose information on his family to protect its privacy, he said.

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